16 days until my 70.3! Training's been going pretty well. Well, swimming has kind of been sucking, but running off the bike's been great. I'm mildly worried because, before my dnf half-Iron last fall and before my marathon in February, the last two weeks before tapering I have felt tired 24/7. It hasn't happened this time and this weekend is my last big push before tapering. I don't know if I feel good because I'm fit and ready, or if I just don't feel exhausted because I haven't trained hard enough. I think I'm just inventing something to fret about...

Don't invent things! I'm sure you're totally ready but that taper time will screw with your mind so bad. I am completely unprepared for my race. My knee has been giving me trouble since my marathon on 21 april so i haven't been running much or biking as much as i should be. I think the bike really messes with my IT. My swimming is improving but that's only because I couldn't swim at all a few weeks ago! I'm just hoping to survive at this point.

I think I've decided that I didn't get to the extreme exhaustion level this time because my fitness level is just higher. I've been running really strong off the bike anyway. And now I've started tapering (well, this week is a slight decrease in volume/intensity... next week will be the real kick back week.) I think I will feel really ready after I have my planning meeting with my coach.

Your fitness is there, inceptisol, so you will do just fine. Have you had a professional fitting on your bike? A few tweaks could alleviate your IT band issues if it's the bike that's messing with it.

Sounds to me like your fitness level is extremely high! You've put in all the hard work and can reap the benefits now. I read something a few months ago that basically said "by the time of the race you've already done all the work so the race itself is really just a victory lap". For some reason that calmed me down a little and reminded me that i should be enjoying the race instead of letting it freak me out. Have fun on your victory lap!

Thanks for the vote of confidence! In addition to being under-prepared, we've been having the worst weather here. It hasn't gotten above 60F and we got 2 months worth of rain this weekend. The swim portion of one of the biggest races in austria, an IM 70.3, got cancelled last weekend because of the conditions. Much of the country is severely flooded. So I haven't done any open-water swimming either! I'm kind of having an athletic break down so thanks for listening!

That's a good idea about the bike fitting. I got a new bike last year and fitted it based on lots of youtube videos. Seems like when my knees are strong, riding is no problem but getting on when my IT is flared up just exacerbates it. I'm seeing a knee doc next week.

I survived my first tri! And I even enjoyed it once I got past the panicky, drowny feeling during the first half of the swim.

Details: It got a little wonky because of recent flooding in the area where the swim was supposed to be so the swim got moved to a location about a mile away. This meant we had to set up our transition, walk a mile to the swim start, swim, jog a mile back to transition and start the bike. I haven't done any open water swimming and this was a mass start of almost 200 people so i got kind of panicked and choked on a lot of water at the beginning. I was very seriously doubting my ability to finish. But once i made the turn and knew i just had to swim back to the start I totally calmed down, got my rhythm and swam the rest without stopping. I got passed by just about everyone on the bike (22.5 km, this is an unusual distance, no?) but made up some time on the run. I finished 21 of 47 women in a time of 1:33:11!

Nice job! I get passed by tons of people on the bike too. Mass swims starts can be super overwhelming, but you made it! And next time it will be less scary because you'll know that you just have to find your rhythm.

Thank you! Also, a funny thing: I was feeling cheap and decided not to spend 15euro on a startnumber belt but I found an old bra band elastic and pinned my bib to that! Not sure if it looked remotely legit or if it was totally obvious that i was wearing a bra strap around my waist the whole time. Ha!

I recently started taking swimming lessons, which inspired me to sign up for my first triathlon. It's at the end of this month and it's just a short one, 400m swim, 11k bike, 5k run. I can do each of those things individually without too much trouble, but have never done them all at once. Any standard first-timer mistakes that I should watch out for?

_________________She eats a paleo diet, just like the whiskey-and-bacon-eating australopithecans before her. - annak

Definitely do some run-bike brick workouts ahead of time, even if it's just running for 10 minutes off the bike. It can feel weird for your muscles to switch activities and you'll want to know what that's like!

Thanks! Yeah, the bike/run transition is definitely the one I'm most wary of - I used to run half marathons but haven't done more than 5k in the last two years, so I'm not 100% sure how my legs are going to feel about this. I'll be sure to try it out sooner than later.

_________________She eats a paleo diet, just like the whiskey-and-bacon-eating australopithecans before her. - annak

Swimming is kind of kicking my butt. I mean, I'm sure I can finish but it would be nice to be able to swim more than two lengths without needing a rest!

On the plus side, turns out my swimming instructor is doing a tri of his own this weekend. When he found out that's what I'm training for, he started giving me pointers about training in general, and now in the last couple classes he's been tailoring my corrections to that end. It's pretty great, I feel like I have a coach!

_________________She eats a paleo diet, just like the whiskey-and-bacon-eating australopithecans before her. - annak

I'm trying to think of good first-time advice! Have a good think of what you're going to wear and do a trial run when it's all wet etc! If it's a wetsuit swim make sure you don't get your ankle timing chip caught and leave it behind in T1 hahah. Eat lots and have fuuuuun!

5th woman in the childhood-home-of-Anne-Boleyn race, mental! Wanted sub 1:30 but it was a tough old bike so was 1:33 all in I think.

Did my first "brick" workout last night, although I'm not sure it counts if I bike THEN swim. I did have to do a short ride home after the swim, so at least I got to experience the feeling of getting on my bike right after. Wasn't too bad overall.

_________________She eats a paleo diet, just like the whiskey-and-bacon-eating australopithecans before her. - annak

Had my race yesterday! It went pretty well overall, total time of 1:34 (400m swim, 11k bike, 5k run). I did better than expected in the swim, but the bike and run segments were pretty brutal. I need to do FAR more biking and running. And my transitions definitely need work. But I finished, and I'm not in too much pain today. I think I just might do this again - proper sprint distance next time maybe?

_________________She eats a paleo diet, just like the whiskey-and-bacon-eating australopithecans before her. - annak